Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer, what the UK’s official reserves are of (a) gold, (b) foreign currency and (c) other assets as at 31 March 2019.
Answered by John Glen - Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
As at end March 2019, the market value of the UK’s official reserves was $169.5 billion. This comprised of (a) $12.9 billion gold, (b) $129.5 billion foreign currency reserves and (c) $27.1 billion other assets.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to tackle the shortage of pathologists that can carry out post-mortem examinations for coroners.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Most post-mortem examinations are carried out by pathologists who specialise in histopathology. However, post-mortems are not a requirement of the Certificate of Completion of Training in histopathology, therefore, the number of histopathologists who are qualified to carry out post-mortem examinations for coroners is not held centrally.
Overall, in January 2019, there were 1,206 full time equivalent (FTE) consultant histopathologists in the National Health Service in England. This represents a 10% (119 FTE) increase compared to January 2010.
Health Education England has committed to attract and retain more histopathologists by 2021 as part of its Cancer Workforce Plan for England published in December 2017. In 2019, 100% of specialist histopathology training places were filled.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of pathologists available to conduct post-mortem examinations for coroners.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
Most post-mortem examinations are carried out by pathologists who specialise in histopathology. However, post-mortems are not a requirement of the Certificate of Completion of Training in histopathology, therefore, the number of histopathologists who are qualified to carry out post-mortem examinations for coroners is not held centrally.
Overall, in January 2019, there were 1,206 full time equivalent (FTE) consultant histopathologists in the National Health Service in England. This represents a 10% (119 FTE) increase compared to January 2010.
Health Education England has committed to attract and retain more histopathologists by 2021 as part of its Cancer Workforce Plan for England published in December 2017. In 2019, 100% of specialist histopathology training places were filled.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what the gold reserves of the Bank of England were on 30 June (a) 1998, (b) 2008 and (c) 2018.
Answered by David Lidington
The Bank of England does not own any gold reserves of its own, except for two bars held for display at the Bank of England Museum. However, the Bank provides safe custody for the UK's gold reserves and for other customers. It has only started recently publishing the weight of all the gold in its custody on its website, which includes data back to 2011. On 30 June 2018, it held 166,516,000 fine troy ounces of gold. There is no equivalent data available for 1998 and 2008.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment he has made of the effect of the English Baccalaureate on access to creative subjects.
Answered by Nick Gibb
The Government is clear that the English Baccalaureate (EBacc) should be studied as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. It is limited in size in order to allow pupils to continue to study additional subjects that reflect their individual interests and strengths, including arts subjects. The proportion of pupils taking at least one Arts GCSE has fluctuated but remained broadly stable since the EBacc was introduced in 2010
Arts subjects are not limited to the classroom, and according to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Taking Part Survey, in 2017-18, 96% of children aged 5-15 had engaged with the arts in the past 12 months[1]. The government is providing almost £500 million of funding between 2016-20 for arts and cultural education programmes.
[1] The arts cover music activities, theatre/drama, reading/writing, arts crafts and design, film, video, media, and radio activities, dance activities, street arts, circus, carnival, and festival activities.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Trade:
What plans he has to ensure that the poorest countries in the world are able to take part fairly in global trade.
Answered by Graham Stuart
We believe that the global, rules-based system is the most important protection poorer countries have. We will champion their interests through the WTO, enact a UK trade preferences scheme through the Taxation Cross Border Trade Act and then further improve their access to the UK market after we’ve left the EU.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
What steps her Department is taking to promote the Government's trade for development programme.
Answered by Penny Mordaunt - Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons
The UK remains a world leader in trade for development. We are prioritising our trading partners for the future, for example through our commitments on gender, the new Commonwealth Standards Network and our ambition for the UK to be the largest G7 investor in Africa by 2022.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much the NHS spent on private contractors for residential care for patients with a diagnosis of autism in (a) 2016-17 and (b) 2017-18.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
The information requested is not held centrally.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent on programmes tackling malaria in (a) 2015-16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017-18.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID contributes to the global effort to tackle malaria through bilateral programmes in countries, research, multilateral funding to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and the World Health Organisation (WHO), and through strengthening health systems in malaria affected countries.
The total estimated UK spend on malaria was £332 million in 2015/16, £499 million in 2016/17 and £481 million in 2017/18. All direct bilateral malaria spend and relevant multilateral contributions are available in Statistics on International Development. DFID is currently the second largest global funder of the effort against malaria and will remain a leading global donor in the future.
Asked by: Jeremy Lefroy (Conservative - Stafford)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department spent on programmes tackling Neglected Tropical Diseases in (a) 2015-16, (b) 2016-17 and (c) 2017-18.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Estimated UK spend on programmes tackling neglected tropical diseases was £48 million in 2015/16, £60 million in 2016/17 and £73 million in 2017/18. The figures include expenditure on programmes to prevent or treat neglected tropical diseases and funding for research.
In 2017, UK funded programmes delivered over 144 million treatments for neglected tropical diseases.